After the embrace ended, the three stood in awkward silence for a moment before deciding to unwind from their long journey first. While Maysa looked after Vije, Turan went to soak in the hot springs with Solif.

“Oh, this is fantastic... Though it’d be even better if it were a little hotter.”

They were in the hottest pool in the entire hot-spring area, the same one Turan had once entered with Lida, yet even this apparently failed to satisfy Solif. Then again, wasn’t one of the two bloodlines within him the power to command fire?

Just as Turan had been born with a keen sense of smell and quick reflexes, Solif possessed the ability to detect various kinds of light and a resistance to heat. That resistance was not absolute, of course, as the injuries the Baraha nobles had suffered in the explosion proved.

As Turan sat with his eyes closed, enjoying the heat, Solif spoke quietly beside him.

“Hey, Turan.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that young lady completely smitten with you?”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“You could tell just from how she acted earlier! Well, if a man turned an entire great house upside down to save me, I’d fall for him too, if I were a woman.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

In Turan’s experience, people experiencing so-called love gave off the same scent as animals in heat. But he had never once smelled anything of the sort from Maysa. Even during their embrace earlier, all he had sensed was a rather complicated mixture of joy and sorrow.

Unaware of this, Solif gave him a knowing, sly grin.

“Come on, don’t be so stiff. You took the risk because you’re interested in her, didn’t you?”

“I risked getting on Baraha’s bad side to save you too. Surely you don’t think that means I’m interested in you.”

“Well, that’s hardly the same thing...”

Solif clicked his tongue in disbelief at Turan’s reply, then changed the subject.

“At least stop being so formal with each other. The three of us are about the same in status, ability, and age anyway. You two being so polite to each other makes me feel like the odd one out.”

“Whatever else you might say, claiming we’re about the same age is a bit shameless.”

Turan was nineteen and Maysa twenty-two, while Solif was fifty-eight—nearly three times their age. Of course, considering that top-ranking nobles lived close to three or four hundred years, the gap was not so great that they could not be considered the same generation. Faced with this perfectly reasonable point, Solif burst out indignantly.

“If you’re going to treat me like an old man, at least show your elder some respect!”

* * *

Once they finished bathing, the two dried themselves, dressed, and split up to attend to their respective tasks. Turan offered Solif another warning as he left.

“I’ve told you already, but you mustn’t hunt any monkeys here. They’re all Aicul’s family.”

“I know, I know. I’ll even rescue any monkeys I find in trouble, so stop worrying.”

Watching Solif leave with a confident wave, Turan activated his senses and went to find Maysa. He planned to feed her through the tube while Solif found some fine game for their meal. She seemed embarrassed to let anyone else see the feeding process.

Before long, Turan reached Maysa, only to stop at an unexpected sight. With Vije sitting in her lap, she was carefully massaging the bases of the eagle’s wings.

“How’s this spot? Does it feel good?”

Vije chirped and stretched out one leg to write on the ground. The messages said things like “Good” and “A little more to the right.” Her undeveloped facial muscles did not allow the range of expressions a human could make, but her half-lidded eyes alone made it easy to guess how good she felt.

After a few more minutes of massage, Maysa gave Vije’s wing a pat and stood.

“All right, that’s enough!”

[More!]

“Later. I’ll do it later. Or ask Aicul.”

[He’s too stupid to do this! He’s too strong, and his fingers are too thick!]

Vije stamped her feet, demanding that Maysa read what she had written. She rarely whined like that to anyone but Turan; evidently, she had grown closer to Maysa in the meantime.

Then again, Maysa was someone who “fit,” just as Turan did. Judging from the goodwill Vije had shown when she first met him, there was clearly a special bond between monsters and people connected by bloodline.

Turan watched the two getting along with a fond smile for a moment, then a thought struck him.

‘Would she still be able to use wind magic if Maysa took over my soul contract?’

Of course, he had absolutely no intention of abandoning Vije, but there was no guarantee a situation might not arise that required it. For instance, he might find a monster that “fit” the Zahar bloodline, only for his soul to lack the capacity to accommodate both at once. Or he might die in some unexpected accident...

While he briefly lost himself in these idle thoughts, Maysa soothed the petulant Vije and sent her flying off to Aicul, then greeted him.

“You’ve finished bathing, I see.”

“Ah, yes.”

As he answered, Turan recalled his earlier conversation with Solif and immediately broached the subject.

“Let’s stop being so formal with each other. We’re companions now. We already speak freely with Solif, after all.”

It had not been like this when he and Asiz dropped the formalities, but for some reason, suggesting that he and Maysa speak more casually felt awkward.

“Pardon? Ah, yes... Yeah. All right, Turan.”

Perhaps she felt the same, for she accepted with an oddly awkward air. Turan deliberately ignored the atmosphere and went straight to the point.

“Solif will be making dinner soon, and I thought it would be good to feed you before then. You haven’t been able to eat anything since you left, have you?”

“... No. I’ve tried, but it still isn’t working.”

Turan could read the self-reproach in her face as she answered. If he had to guess, she was angry at herself for being too weak to overcome her emotional wounds.

Rather than suggest they begin feeding her immediately, Turan rested a hand on her shoulder and spoke calmly.

“I don’t know how you feel. I’ve never experienced the misery of being unable to swallow food. But Reto is dead, and as long as I’m beside you, no Zahar noble can sneak up on you.”

While questioning Reto, Turan had arrived at a rough idea of what had caused Maysa’s eating disorder. Most likely, the memory of suffering from the same poison that killed her mother and younger brother had stayed with her.

He was trying to reassure her that the poisoner was already dead, and that even if someone tried something similar, he could stop them. But instead of thanking him, Maysa gave a low groan and shook her head.

“Well... Actually, it isn’t because I’m afraid of being poisoned.”

“Then why?”

Though the question slipped out instinctively, Turan expected no answer. Maysa had always been reluctant to speak of that day.

But perhaps dropping the formalities had brought them a little closer, for after a moment’s hesitation, she blurted it out.

“Because I feel like such a coward.”

Rather than ask why she considered herself a coward, Turan remained silent. He sensed that she would soon explain on her own. And just as he expected, Maysa began to tell him what had happened.

Ten years ago, the three of them had gone for a picnic on a scenic hill near Morgen City. But while eating their packed lunch, they had suddenly developed stomach pains. Her younger brother, whose mana had not yet awakened, had been the first to deteriorate.

What saved him was a restorative magic tool belonging to Maysa, who was already considered the heir despite her young age. It could not remove the poison, so using it was like pouring water into a bottomless jar, but at least it could keep him from dying outright even as blood poured from his entire body.

The problem was that, in the meantime, the poisoning grew worse for Maysa herself and for her mother, who possessed only a bottom-tier noble’s mana. As her mother and younger brother cried out in pain and begged her to save them, all she could do was shed tears of blood and use the healing tool on them in turn, delaying their deaths.

Even the knights who should have been guarding them nearby had vanished. Unable to call for help, Maysa could only cling to the magic tool.

Her mother and brother, weeping blood and screaming for her to save them. The agony of the poison, as though her whole body were burning. Her steadily dwindling mana...

“In the end, I used what little mana I had left to heal myself. I was scared. Scared I’d die too if I kept healing them. If I’d just tried a little harder, I might have saved everyone.”

Maysa bowed her head as though she were guilty of a crime, her auburn hair falling over her face.

Having heard the whole story, Turan realized he had completely misjudged the cause of her eating disorder. The wound inside her was not a fear of death, but guilt over having abandoned her family and survived.

What should he say? He considered several answers for a moment, then comforted Maysa with his honest feelings, without calculation.

“I don’t know whether this will comfort you, but you did nothing wrong. No one can demand that a twelve-year-old child sacrifice herself to save her family. No one has the right to blame you. Not even the family you lost.”

Turan, too, had been exactly twelve when he lost his mother and waged war against the village. Remembering how young and easily frightened he had been then, he could never presume to condemn her actions as cowardice.

At his words, Maysa began to sob, her face still hidden beneath her hair.

* * *

After that brief moment of comfort, Maysa summoned the courage to eat a piece of bread herself. She vomited it back up, then received food through the tube while unconscious, just as before.

Later, after eating the roast rabbit Solif had prepared, Turan gathered his companions and proposed that they analyze their current situation and discuss what to do next. The first topic was the four symbols within Badal, Arabion’s House Head, whom they had seen in Morgen City.

“Four bloodline abilities...”

“Probably wind, lightning, physical strength, and enchanting.”

“So the Thunder Lord is inhabiting the Arabion House Head’s body? Uh, wait.”

Solif glanced at Maysa as he spoke.

“I don’t know much about your god, but the Thunder Lord was definitely male, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I mean, yeah.”

She had agreed to drop the formalities with Solif as well, but evidently was still far from used to it.

“Then that means he was planning to switch to a woman’s body later, doesn’t it? Just imagining becoming a woman horrifies me. Impressive, in all sorts of ways.”

“Maybe he’s lived so long that he no longer cares about such things. It’s not as if Arabion has never had a female House Head. Or perhaps it isn’t the Thunder Lord himself at all.”

Both of them widened their eyes at Turan’s hypothesis.

“What do you mean, not the Thunder Lord himself?”

“The body he’s wearing has the Arabion bloodline, so he might simply be using the Thunder Lord’s relatively compatible abilities, while the soul itself belongs to another god. There’s a different, more famous god who’s the ancestor of the Enchanter bloodline, after all.”

“The limping goddess...”

Maysa spoke the name of the deity who had created Orem’s library, the old empire’s roads, and many other relics.

“It’s also suspicious that the fourth bloodline that appeared when he truly stepped in happened to be the Enchanter. Perhaps the House Head’s own consciousness is normally on the surface, and the god’s consciousness only emerges when he uses his power. He felt different when he was standing back and when he stepped forward.”

“True. He did seem like a completely different person. Wait, then does that mean a woman was wearing a man’s body? That’s another kind of...”

Though Solif agreed, he seemed fixated on a rather odd detail, muttering at length about whether the god inside the Arabion House Head was male or female, and which would be stranger. Turan lightly tapped a rock to bring his attention back, then delivered his conclusion.

“The one consolation is that the House Head can’t wield his power freely. If he could, he wouldn’t have sent a representative out in the first place.”

That meant that even if the three of them could not become as strong as Badal, they might win simply by attaining enough skill to hold out against him for a while. Then Maysa turned to Solif with a question.

“Baraha’s ancestor was the Silver Sun, right?”

“That’s right. I wonder what the four bloodlines would be in this case.”

“Couldn’t we make a rough guess from scripture or legends?”

Solif hummed thoughtfully at Maysa’s suggestion, then spoke as though something had occurred to him.

“I think one of the four would be a close-combat bloodline in this case too. There were quite a few stories about wielding a sword of light to slaughter dokkaebi.”

Dokkaebi were a race from the east, notorious for their sharklike pointed teeth and their fondness for eating children. In the present day, of course, they were merely one more race driven into remote lands by humanity.

“I’d love to go back and ask. Or search the house’s study.”

Of course, if they actually returned to House Baraha as Solif suggested, they would immediately find themselves at war. A sudden thought struck Turan, and he looked at Maysa.

“Maybe you have a dormant Enchanter bloodline too, Maysa.”

“Me?”

“I only had two at first, after all.”

Perhaps it was simply impossible to tell because Maysa’s potential exceeded Turan’s, and a third bloodline would be unlocked once she reached her limit. If that happened, she might even be capable of matching Badal.

Turan thought Solif might possess that sort of aptitude as well. When he said so, Maysa and Solif looked down at themselves, then at each other, and tilted their heads.

“A third bloodline ability. Could there really be one...?”

“Is there any way to find out?”

“There is one. We could visit the library in Orem.”

Solif, who had heard the relevant story, nodded at Turan’s words.

“Ah, the one out west?”

“It isn’t very far from here, either.”

Even if the two could not communicate with the librarian, Turan should be able to act as an intermediary and at least have their bloodlines identified. Whether the librarian would agree to the request, of course, was something they would only discover by going there and asking.

And so their first objective was settled: to visit Orem’s library and check the other two’s bloodlines.

They did not leave immediately, however, believing it would be better to wait until Maysa’s health had recovered further. She visibly put on flesh with every day’s nourishment, so with enough time, her former appearance would become unrecognizable.

Eventually, even if she walked openly through the world, Arabion would have difficulty noticing her. They were looking for a woman as thin as a skeleton; no one who saw the transformed Maysa would think of the woman she had once been.

Over the next few days, they exchanged various secret magical techniques handed down in their respective houses. Starting with the thought acceleration magic Maysa had taught Turan, Solif also shared several of Baraha’s secret techniques. Turan, however, had already learned most of them while practicing magic with the two, leaving him little new to learn. If anything, he could fill in as a teacher whenever either of them was busy.

“So, like this... Damn it, it’s not working.”

One thing they discovered in the process, unfortunately, was that Solif’s magical aptitude fell a notch below Turan’s and Maysa’s. Even so, by the standards of ordinary wizards, he was more than worthy of being called a genius.

As Solif fumed over his failure to immediately master a spell Maysa had taught him, Turan calmly demonstrated it in front of him.

“I’ll show you again, so try following along. Like this... Hm?”

In the middle of his demonstration, Turan’s expression stiffened as he sensed two people below the mountain.

Judging by the contours of the body and the amount of mana, one was unmistakably Lida, the Ravista noble. That was hardly surprising, considering she often visited this place to bathe in the hot springs.

In fact, her failure to visit over the past few months had almost made him wonder whether something had happened to her. From their past conversations, he understood that she generally stopped by once every few months.

What startled Turan was the noble following behind her. A monster with roughly two to two and a half times Maysa’s mana. Less than Badal, Arabion’s House Head, but still an enormous amount...

Seeing his visible tension, Solif asked in puzzlement,

“What’s wrong?”

“I think... we have an important guest.”

The identity of someone visiting with Lida while possessing that much mana was obvious. The head of the great House Ravista was coming here.